[Nettime-bold] re: questions (fwd)

[{ brad brace } <bbrace@eskimo.com>]

  Sunday, April 15, 2001


	On the Arts: Lamenting the breakdown 
	in trust between reporter, subject

	By Bob Hoover


 Culturally, for me, Bernhard is of no consequence, but Eggers poses some
 interesting problems for my business, which covers the writing and
 selling of books.

 His memoir (and no matter what he calls it, it is a memoir), "A
 Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," reaped a mountain of notice
 after it was published last year, when Eggers was 28.

 Its artless sincerity and lack of self-pity won over reviewers and
 readers.

 Eggers' parents died within weeks of each other, causing the
 then-21-year-old to care for his 8-year-old brother. The book alternates
 between the raw family tragedy and Generation X comedy as Eggers tries to
 manage his jobs and sleep with various women while watching out for his
 brother.

 His youth, self-sacrifice and earnest humor alone were a winning
 combination. But Eggers offered something more -- commitment to honesty.

 At first, he used the real names and sometimes phone numbers of friends
 to prove his point that "one could be completely factual and still tell a
 story that felt and read novelistic, somewhat timeless, at least fluid."

 In the introduction to the just-published paperback version, Eggers
 admits that some were offended by seeing their names in his book and that
 he made adjustments.

 He maintained his pledge to honesty in another way, though, listing his
 income and expenses to arrive at a profit of $39,567.68, unheard of for a
 writer to do. Also rare was Eggers' insistence on rewriting or explaining
 passages from the original book and designing alternative covers.

 The paperback is really two books with two covers -- the memoir and a
 commentary, called "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making."

 Eggers now runs an Internet publishing concern called Timothy
 McSweeney's, a collection of fiction and nonfiction, plus correspondence
 and commentary.

 He's a literary celebrity -- brash, cool, young, independent. And he
 knows it. He's dismissive of media interviews, refusing to speak directly
 to interviewers, insisting on a question-and-answer format via e-mail.

 "This way there is no leverage given to either side," he told McSweeney's
 readers. "It's simply information without any tweaking."

 He calls it "a format always agreed to when a periodical simply wants to
 get information to its readership without bending it."

 His position is why you probably will not read any interviews with Eggers
 by me. I don't like e-mail interviews. I'd rather hear a person's voice,
 with the pauses, the "ahs" and the other sound effects. They are
 indications of personality.

 Eggers prefers direct exchange of information, period. No tweaking.

 When he discovered "tweaking" in a New York Times story Feb. 14 about the
 publication of his paperback, he responded in a nasty and embarrassing
 manner.

 Eggers' victim was the author, David Kirkpatrick, who covers publishing
 for the Times. His weapon was Kirkpatrick's e-mails, which he reproduced
 along with his replies on the McSweeney's Web site.

 Kirkpatrick was revealed as a fawning supplicant who begged "please,
 please, please" for an interview, saying he was doing what Eggers'
 publisher wanted -- a Times story timed to the release of the book. He
 didn't have to say that the publicity value was enormous.

 Eggers at first refused, then relented after Kirkpatrick praised his
 book. But he did insist on speaking frequently "off the record," limiting
 the scope of the interview.

 Many journalists, including me, close the notebook when sources
 needlessly declare an "off-the-record" session. If we can't use it, we're
 not interested.

 Kirkpatrick also said he would allow Eggers to read parts of his story
 before publication to make sure the author found it acceptable. Most
 journalists don't do that, either, unless it involves technical material
 that a source could check for accuracy.

 In short, the Timesman bent over backward in the name of celebrity, as
 though he were writing a story with the headline "I interview Dave
 Eggers."

 His approach backfired, of course. The story appeared before Eggers
 reviewed it, and he angrily attacked Kirkpatrick for using off-the-record
 material, making errors and characterizing him as a hypocrite about
 money.

 As part of his response, Eggers included a hypothetical description of
 Kirkpatrick, admitting "you [Kirkpatrick] and I know whether there is any
 truth to that paragraph, but no one else does. Maybe there is some truth.
 Maybe none of it is true."

 That was a bit harsh and perhaps potentially libelous, but the real
 damage might be to the shaky relationship between artist and the press.
 While it's refreshing to find an author who's not desperate for
 publicity, it's disturbing to learn just how suspicious some are of the
 news media.

 Nearing 30, Eggers is of a generation that neither trusts nor reads the
 press. So far, his success might indicate that he doesn't need it as
 well, although the lavish praise of newspaper critics had something to do
 with his book's popularity.

 Finally, thanks to Kirkpatrick, Eggers and his followers might be a bit
 contemptuous of a medium that appears so willing to play by his rules
 rather than its own, all in the interest of celebrity worship.

 After the Eggers-Kirkpatrick dustup, the relationship between press and
 subject is out of balance. We in the press can adjust that by clearly
 stating again what our job is -- presenting a rounded view of our subject
 in the interest of informing our readers.

 And our subject merely has to be just that -- our subject. Leave the
 aggression and agenda at home, please.

 Eggers, I fear, wants a new world, one without a filter between him and
 his readers. Perhaps because of his Internet experience, he's comfortable
 only with that relationship.

 But, until the Internet has put us out of business, Eggers had best make
 some room in his genius for the press.

-------
 Bob Hoover is the Post-Gazette book editor.   



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